Integrated cooking and vacuum cooling of chicken breast cuts in a single vessel

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe objective of this work was to develop and evaluate integrated processes of cooking and vacuum cooling of chicken breast cuts in a same vessel aiming at avoiding product manipulation and reducing the processing time. In this context, three integrated processes were compared with respect to weight loss and processing time: (i) vapor cooking followed by vacuum cooling; (ii) water immersion cooking followed by draining the cooking water and vacuum cooling; and (iii) water immersion cooking followed by vacuum cooling with the product immerse in the cooking water. Shorter cooling times were obtained using processes (i) and (ii), where the cooling is performed in non-immersed samples, while smaller weight losses are obtained using process (iii). Consequently, for applications in which weight loss is not an issue, processes (i) and (ii) must be used. Alternatively, process (iii) can be used for obtaining smaller weight losses with a larger cooling time.

The Optimization of Volumetric Displacement Can Uniformize the Temperature Distribution of Heated Ham during a Vacuum Cooling Process

“…As a result, various methods such as air blast, cold room, water immersion cooling and vacuum cooling have been studied in an attempt to cool hot cooked meat (70 _ 90℃) to a low temperature (4 _ 10℃) in a required time (Zhang et al, 2013;Zheng et al, 2004;Sun and Zheng, 2006;Drummond et al, 2009;Schmidt et al, 2010;Feng et al, 2012b;Dong et al, 2012;). Of these methods, vacuum cooling was the most effective.…”

Integration of cooking and vacuum cooling of carrots in a same vessel

“…Procedures such as sprinkling water over the product before vacuum cooling or applying the vacuum with the product immersed in cooking water have been suggested as alternatives to reduce the weight loss during this process (APATI et al, 2006;SUN, 2006a, DRUMMOND;SUN, 2008;ARAGÃO;LAURINDO, 2010). Another feature of the vacuum cooling technique is the possibility of its integration with the cooking operation.…”

“…Another feature of the vacuum cooling technique is the possibility of its integration with the cooking operation. In this case, the same unit can be used for both operations without needing to transfer the cooked product to another container SUN, 2000, SCHMIDT;ARAGÃO;LAURINDO, 2010). Such integration reduces product handling and the total process time, and thus it is an efficient method for cooling sauces, suspensions, meat products, and other foods.…”

“…Among the new technologies for food cooling, many studies have shown the viability of using the vacuum cooling technique for reducing the cooling time of different kind of foods such as vegetables, ready-to-eat foods, bakery products, and meat products SUN, 2000;WANG;SUN, 2001;SUN, 2004;HUBER;LAURINDO, 2005;HUBER et al, 2006;HUBER;ARAGÃO;LAURINDO, 2010). For instance, Zhang and Sun (2006b) reported different methods for cooling sliced carrots.…”

Mechanism of spillage and excessive boiling of water during vacuum cooling

“…Several methods have been attempted to overcome this problem especially for meat products. These include pre-wetting prior to vacuum cooling (McDonald and Sun, 2000); brine solution injection (Desmond et al, 2002); vacuum cooling of small meat pieces in soup (Houska et al, 2003); pulsed immersion vacuum cooling (Cheng and Sun, 2006); combined vacuum cooling and air blast cooling (Jackman et al, 2007); integration of cooking and vacuum cooling (Rodrigues et al, 2012;Schmidt et al, 2010;Schmidt and Laurindo, 2014); vacuum cooling followed by immersion vacuum cooling (Dong et al, 2012); immersion vacuum cooling of large meat products (Feng et al, 2013); pressure control Song and Liu, 2014). Of these methods, immersion vacuum cooling can drastically reduce moisture loss rate (Feng et al, 2012), because most of water used to refrigerate comes from the surrounding hot soup or cold water.…”